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This will probably get some play and is a bit of a different topic. Former CEO of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicicki son died of a drug freshman year of college at Cal.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-youtube-ceos-son-found-dead-uc-berkeley-rcna139355
The obvious implications is he took something laced with fentanyl. Culture war wise concerns about fentanyl are red coded though issues with fentanyl seem apparent in both red and blue states and people.
Overall I feel like this issue has lost its place in the news cycle. A quick google overdose deaths topped 112k in 2023 an all-time record. I am seeing a current U.S. population of 334 million. So to put this in perspective 112k multiplied by an average lifespan of 80 years is like 9 million deaths. Or close to 3% of US population at current rates will die by a drug overdose. I think I can fairly say it’s a huge issue even if you disagree with how I’m calculating the average persons risks of OD at around 3% in their lifetime.
Quick analysis of the kid he looks in shape for a 19 year old and was majoring in math so he’s the dream of any parent. Odd thing is he was found unresponsive at 4:23 pm on a Tuesday. That is going to be weird and details will come out as that time frame is more of an addict death. Versus I expected a weekend OD and he did some fentanyl laced coke/Molly during the weekend.
From people I’ve talked to opioids are amazing. I do not know if I’ve ever done them. They have to be if people do them. I’ve done molly/coke/mushrooms in the past. The big thing to me is I’m paranoid I’m doing something laced now and have largely cut out doing anything now.
The midtwit take is that dealers either sell both and cross contaminate or lace other drugs to get people addicted. Personally opinion and perhaps a difference without a difference is it’s probably lacing just so people say it’s the good shit.
Sorry for their loss.
Culture war issues
Plays into the immigration debate of not controlling the border
Blue states seem to be adopting a let it happen and treat but it doesn’t seem to be working
War on drug topics. I don’t think the old war on drugs ever dealt with the death rate we have now but war on drugs doesn’t seem stupid when it’s a 3% population level lifetime death rate which is far higher than COVID and killing people with high life expectancy
Other policy considerations. Some would say things like legalize drugs to kill fentanyl and people get “safe” drugs. Some conservative arguments that something’s should just be illegal. Opioids probably are fantastic but the death rate for someone who tries opioids seems extremely high.
My numeracy tells me this is a big problem and I believe an order of magnitude bigger problem than COVID. I don’t think it’s quite as hard coded in culture wars.
Maybe I'm an outlier (or I was taking an insufficient dose as described in Drug users use a lot of drugs), but Opioids weren't that great unless I was in pain.
My experience made me much more sympathetic to the idea that the "opioid epidemic" is an appropriate reaction to the chronic pain epidemic (particularly among blue collar workers with physically-demanding jobs. Who would've thought.)
Opioids definitely do affect different people differently. I've had them prescribed once to take after a surgery. I took one dose immediately after the surgery and decided I'd rather no pain medication at all than a second dose. (Pretty sure I took ibuprofen, not nothing.) I've discussed this with others and gather this isn't an entirely uncommon reaction, although certainly far from a majority opinion.
My experience was extremely similar. When I got my wisdom teeth removed, they gave me a massive bottle of vicodin. Dozens of doses, apparently intended to be taken daily for months. I took two doses: one several hours after the surgery once the initial anesthesia wore off, and then another two days after the surgery when the pain became very acute. The rest of the pills in that bottle went untouched.
It occurred to me how easy it would have been, and how profitable, to sell the rest of the pills. Although I’ve never used the “Dark Web”, nor do I have any familiarity with the sorts of websites or venues people use to buy and sell drugs, I can’t imagine it would have been difficult to figure out. And, sadly, there is at least one member of my family who would have taken them off my hands if I’d offered. I also did not want to throw them away in my dumpster, for fear of attracting a swarm of local homeless. I ended up returning the bottle of pills to the surgery center, over their objections, and told them to figure out what to do with it.
On the one hand, this could be read as a story about how easy it is for people to inadvertently become addicted to opioids; I went in for a minor surgery, was given a huge bottle of pain pills by a trusted medical professional, and told to use them to my heart’s content. I was fortunate in that I did not end up experiencing very much significant recurring pain as a result of my surgery, and therefore was not seriously tempted to use more than what was absolutely necessary. If my surgery had produced significant recurring pain, who’s to say that I would have had the fortitude and self-control to resist burning through that whole bottle of pills?
On the other hand, even if I had done so, I could not plausibly have claimed that it was inadvertent, or that I didn’t understand the risks. Every thinking adult with even a cursory understanding of current events is aware of the gravity of opioid addiction. Now, if there had been something laced into those pills without my knowledge - if I’d thought I was taking immunosuppressants and it turned out they had fentanyl in them - this would obviously be beyond my control. My sense is that people who talk a lot about the “opioid crisis” tend to imply that this type of situation - people taking opioids without realizing it, and becoming addicted - is very common. My naïve sense is that probably the much more common scenario is more similar to my experience, wherein people are given massively unnecessary and inflated doses of pain medication by doctors, and fail to exercise proper self-control over how much of that medication to use.
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